#however. however. i do have sympathy.

[hirokiyuu]

i do often think abt the fact that instance is the only medical professional on the ship bc besk is dead. i often think abt how between them the burden of the colony's health was on their shoulders and then besk died and now it was just instance's job. now she's got a fourteen year old talking about aliens and a twelve year old having a breakdown and shaving all her hair and it's up to Her to deal with it. her, of all people,

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

I was thinking about how we never see the fallout of the clone mutiny on Umbara which one would expect to lead to a some sort of situation- i mean yes, Krell turned out to be a traitor, and yes, any number of things could have happened off screen, but we don’t see it, so- and also the chronic occurrence of Anakin disobeying orders and suffering zero formal consequences, which is not generally how armies work-

and one possible explanation that amuses me is the jedi high command basically deciding on a wink-wink-nudge-nudge approach to these things, with no cases of mutiny or disobedience ever reported, no sir nothing to see here, these clones on the list of the dead are definitely really dead not deserters, and Krell died in action, terribly tragic, Captain Rex is of course an impeccable captain who would never dream of mutiny, etc, and that Ahsoka’s trial was literally the first time anyone in that army ended up in front of a military tribunal at all

[ropebunnykant]

i will say the jealousy thing is kind of starting to piss me off

[a-commas-a-pause]

Was doing some cursory research about low concentration salicylic as an over-the-counter acne treatment (been having a flare-up, likely due to a combo of stress and shifting environmental factors, and since I'm a terrible skin picker I'm trying to find ways to avoid giving myself scarring without needing to visit a doctor) and as I was scrolling through the Wikipedia page I learned from the epidemiology section that acne apparently affects women slightly more than men:

...and I don't know why, but this really struck me.

I guess I grew up with the belief, picked up from the culture and media around me, that acne was this "greasy teenage boy" problem, in some way inherently unfeminine. I didn't really think boys got it more than girls, I figured that was a stereotype, but I kind of assumed the stats were pretty much equal. And back when I still thought I was a girl, I felt worse about my own acne, since it felt like yet another way I was performing girl/womanhood incorrectly.

Finding out it's actually slightly more common in (cis) women is throwing me for a loop, even though it rightly shouldn't be - that's a very neutral and harmless fact! But you never see acne treated as just a feature of a teenage girl's face, it's always something awful that needs to be fixed (never mind that in real life, you often can't "fix" acne completely, can only manage it). That's not to say it's treated as something positive in boys either - usually boys with acne are also treated as undesirable, be that a loveable nerd or just a creepy loser - but I'm not sure I've ever even seen a girl character with even moderate acne (like I had at that age, though it certainly felt severe at the time) on screen.

I took isotretinoin for my acne in school, which is a pretty powerful medication that is highly effective at stopping acne but also comes with some serious risks - I had to take regular blood tests when I was on it to make sure it wasn't killing my liver. Due to my (mentioned before on this blog, lol) massive phobia of all things medical and spiky, I fainted for every single one of these. On top of that, it increased my already very high (I'm about as white as you can get) sensitivity to sun, so I couldn't go out even on cloudy days without suncream. And it causes birth defects, so they kept making me take supervised pregnancy tests "just in case" for months, until I changed dermatologists and the new one was like "what? why? no, you don't have to do those, just sign a thing saying you're not sexually active and it's not our fault if you're lying about that and you're chill".

It was a Lot, is what I'm saying.

Isotretinoin isn't the first port of call for treating acne - my GP tried several topical solutions and two different kinds of antibiotics (one of which I was allergic to, which naturally, me being me, I discovered by fainting about it. Again. in music class, this time) before finally referring me to the dermatologist who was allowed to prescribe me The Serious Drugs. Moreover, I stand by my decision! I wasn't pressured into taking it by family or friends, I was allowed to make my own choices, and going through all that rigmarole was absolutely my choice.

...I might even have taken the same choice if I'd lived in a society without all this weird stuff around acne, to be honest. As mentioned at the top of the post, I have a skin picking problem and acne not only doesn't help with that, it was causing me actual pain.

But also. I don't know. The societal stuff didn't help at all. My dermatologist suggested at the time that insecurity about my acne might be contributing to my chronic neck and upper back pain, of all things (much like the acne, something that started in my teens but hasn't stopped since I left them), since it might be making it harder for me to stand up straight with confidence. I laughed the idea off at the time, but now... I don't know. It could certainly have been a contributing factor.

I wish I had a call to action here, but I don't really know what can be done about this, especially not at the individual level. This is a societal gender discrimination issue, and I guess an ableism issue as well? I wouldn't normally call my acne a disability, but it is certainly a medical condition, and it does affect my life (and acne can certainly be the basis of unconscious discrimination, though I'm very grateful that that hasn't been something I've faced personally). If anyone has any more productive suggestions, feel free to add them onto this post. And I guess, put characters with acne in your stories? Including women, and including adults! 5% is one in twenty. One in every twenty 40+ year old women (according to that cited study, anyway, which I can't currently verify because my institutional access is fucking broken again) still "have problems" with acne. That might be worth representing.

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

sorry i’m so fucking normal about hivemind!decem being basically confirmed with the latest installment. do you ever think about how legundo’s greatest want in this prison is a friend. do you ever think about how the one request that he ever made of decem was that he not be alone next time. do you ever think about the noble saying she worries about him forgetting himself and the fact that he collects the “unique” (pink sheep) to try and have a friend in these worlds because it’s all he’s got. do you think about the noble saying she could make him thousands of his most desired companions. do you think about the fact that they want their brother back. cause i do. i sure do.

[musical-chick-13]

Fandom understand the narrative significance of Jaime/Cersei challenge (impossible).

[windupaidoneus]

now some people may not like to hear it but even the worst people who exist are still people & there is no human being who has More right than others to decide whether others deserve to live or die (does not mean i personally condemn murder in self defense or anything of the sort or killing fascists or whatever i'm just saying as a baseline This Is How it Is) & this is why the death penalty is not a good thing no matter how good & trustworthy the people in any government might be. people on average also deserve the chance to learn to do better. & no, someone who's been forcefed propaganda their entire life will not let go of that deeply entrenched mindset so easily, it's not particularly unrealistic & it absolutely sucks to deal with but in the context of tangibly working toward world peace it's also not an issue to try & help such people both in material ways & in helping them learn better rather than cut them down or abandon them to a grim fate. all this to say that's why i don't think garlemald is written badly, as unpleasant as the experience might be. walks off the stage

[gideonisms]

not me eagerly awaiting your thoughts on the nge movie/ending

OH yeah so I do still plan to watch it but have had kind of a rough few weeks and after getting 5 minutes in and failing to understand the basic machinations of the plot decided to return to it when I have more than a single brain cell. if you need me I will be rewatching pride and prejudice (2005), questioning most of my life choices, and soaking my feet

[iholli]

Ok but the way J'onn made Klagger suffer so much that he couldn't even think without being in pain. BRUHHHHHHHH 😭😭😭

J'onn really said FAAFO. 🤣

ICONIC OF HIM REALLY. "I've had just about enough of this dude" and he meant that

get fucking rekt honestly

[huckleberr1es]

no because what i dont understand is why people on ao3 intentionally seek out triggers/dark fics/dead dove, knowing full well that they dont like that type of content, just to leave mean comments? like its literally free to mind your business

and ao3 LITERALLY has a system for filtering tags/fics you dont want to see???? why not... utilize it? curate ur experience? i love me a good dark fic/dead dove but i also have my Squicks and u know what i do... i exclude tags in my search

idk i just think some people are addicted to drama and literally just need to mind their business 😭 "oh no this triggered me!!!" filter the fucking tags then and stop engaging in this weirdo form of self harm just to start shit??? and if someone didnt tag their fic properly tell them????? and if they dont listen??? BLOCK/MUTE THEM????? HELLO?

[victorian-vampir]

Hey.

Jekyll and Hyde is not about a DID system (it's about duality of mankind and repression)

Grizabella was not shunned from the jellicle cats because she was a sex worker (We don't know why she was shunned because it's not important. Also she's a cat, how the fuck is she a sex worker when she's a cat. Promiscuity is not an issue for the clan regardless.)

Victor Frankenstein is not at fault for his monster leaving. (He stood in his back garden for six hours waiting for the sun to rise before going for a walk. When he got back to his house the monster had left)

There are multiple interpretations of text and stories. However there's also times where the text blatantly spells out what it's try to say. Or it doesn't. And you end up with a cat who maybe did sex work and I have no idea how.

[honeysuckle-fic-creator]

So, honest question

Please understand I mean this as politely as possible (I admit I can be something of a Takahashi apologist at times), but

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE NEXT 4 EPISODES THAT’S GOING TO WRAP UP THE PLOT IN A CONCISE AND SATISFYING MANNER????!!!!

[inkperch]

consider: Cornelia/Cleo adopting Kronya (but being the worst mother ever)

Funny you mention Cleo!

An aside I didn't really have chance to slip in: Cleo and Calliope have been bitchy, gossipy besties for literal centuries at this point. Cleo's the first one Calliope went to when she realised she was pregnant, and they hatched a half-decent scheme together to slip Kronya beneath Thales attention... that Cleo chickened out on, and has spent nearly the past two decades convincing herself she wasn't scared of Thales, she just... saw an opportunity to advance her own position and ruthlessly took it, yes-

Like don't get me wrong, Cleo/Cornelia is still very much The Worst, but I like my villains with a little moral nuance at least- and deeply buried regrets about a truly unforgivable betrayal to the only true friend she ever held motivating her to go out of her way to actively be The Worst because the alternative is being a coward sounds just about suitably tragic enough-

[blood-and-better-honey]

quite honestly, the peak of humor will always be a failed backflip

[thegirlwholivesin-delusion]

.

[youlookkindadead]

i've seen quite a bit of confusion about this, so let me attempt to clear things up :

empathy is the ability to feel somebody's emotions as though they are affecting you personally. for example, somebody tells you "my dog died last night!" -> you now feel as though you've lost a pet personally -> you feel grief and sadness just like the other person. not everyone has empathy. it's a trait some people develop and others don't. some have high empathy, some have low empathy, some (like me) have none.

sympathy is the ability to understand and care about somebody else's struggles, even if you don't feel them yourself. so, somebody tells you their dog died -> you realize how this affects them emotionally -> you care about this person, and are upset that they are suffering. not everyone has sympathy either! it's a scale, just like empathy.

compassion is doing something to relieve another person's suffering or make them feel better. somebody tells you their dog died -> you don't want them to remain upset -> you come up with ways to help them feel better, like offering comfort and distractions, or other forms of support. compassion is a learned trait, not something you can be born with like empathy or sympathy. anyone can learn to be compassionate, although some may struggle more with it than others; it's a skill, just like anything else.

however, none of these are required to be a good person. that's a choice you make on your own accord. i hope this clears things up!